Early on in Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters,” a silly, scathing, scattered and bittersweet skewering of fashion, exploitation and more, we glimpse a giant boulder that seems to be hurtling towards Keke Palmer’s creative (though undervalued) fashion designer Corvette. As we soon see, this boulder is not made of stone, but of something even more crushing: the weight of capitalism. It’s made of eviction notices, the bills that pile up and all the deceptively banal paperwork that can just as easily result in death by a thousand cuts.
It’s this surreal flourish, one of many that Riley throws out left and right in his latest feature, that proves to be one of his most subtly effective in his career. Even as everything gets joyously loud, it’s this recurring visual that only gets acknowledged in brief, quieter beats, where we feel his vision most deeply. There are many more ideas at play here, but it’s this physical embodiment of the psychological torment that comes from always having to struggle to get by that grabs hold of you most.
Even as “I Love Boosters” — which centers on a trio of shoplifters who are planning their biggest heist yet from a cruel fashion kingpin (Demi Moore) — is an uproarious romp bursting with everything from sci-fi shenanigans to demonic sex scenes, it’s elements like these that make it the filmmaker’s most emotional work yet. Though the film tackles many of the same ideas Riley has explored in past works, including“Sorry to Bother You” and “I’m a Virgo”, his latest work has him more attuned to character this time around.
The filmmaker wields satire like a sledgehammer, amplifying absurdity — even in throwaway gags on background TVs — never masking his simmering anger at the world’s brokenness. As the characters teeter on the edge of ruin, this go-for-broke cinema nearly comes apart at so many points before hurtling along to the next bit.
It also sees Riley more delicately demonstrating that he’s able to cut deeper with an emotional scalpel when it counts. He is still an unabashed believer in the need for collective organizing, but more than ever before, he also teases out a greater love for the people needed to make up said collective.
This is felt right out of the gate when we get introduced to Palmer’s Corvette at an Oakland nightclub. She’s dancing by herself and having a good time, locking eyes with various men before she takes one of them back to her place, which she tells him is close by. She fumbles for the keys and, when the lights come on, we see the stash of expensive clothes she boosted with her friends — played by the delightful duo of Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige — and is now attempting to sell.
It’s a great opening joke, but also one that first establishes how Corvette is not able to connect in a certain way, given her constant concerns about money. We then see how she’s living in an abandoned chicken shop and hustling each day to steal clothes from the various monochromatic stores in the capitalist hellscape that surrounds her. Soon, the grounded realities of life under capitalism begin to merge with Riley’s heightened, humorous vision — and it is only just beginning.
The ride that we go on, while more than a little scrappy with eventual stop-motion and models coming to the forefront, makes “Sorry to Bother You” look like it was going in slow-motion by comparison. There are so many escalations and jokes that mustn’t dare be spoiled here, each showing how easily the conditions of modern labor can become painfully, cartoonishly bleak. But in the face of this bleakness, it’s also a film that thrives in just seeing the trio of Corvette, Sade (Ackie), and Mariah (Paige) bounce off of each other. You’re invested in their connection even as capitalism puts it to the test.
As they try to find their place in a world of hucksters dressing up pyramid schemes, workers trying to push for a better world for all of them and the disorienting, upside-down feeling that can come from capitalism, the film is as playfully entertaining as it is all over the place. Critical to ensuring it doesn’t come apart is Palmer, who, as always, is a captivating, comedic jolt of energy. At the same time, she also provides the emotional heft the film needs at key moments when Riley takes bigger leaps beyond just the series of bigger and bigger heists.
Namely, while there are some more blunt bits that dull some of the film’s sharper strengths, the moments we get with Palmer just sizing up the metaphorical boulders that are rolling towards her pack a surprising emotional wallop. Without spelling things out or overplaying his hand, Riley lets these scenes similarly accumulate greater meaning just as all else descends into madness. How it all ties together is then something that isn’t about spectacle, but about a bittersweet taking hold of all that threatens to destroy the characters.
There are plenty of more cynical moments, sometimes in ways the film doesn’t quite have a handle on, in how we see the overdue revolution Riley is calling to come about. However, it’s a cynicism that is cut with a more earnest belief in people. Riley, proving himself to be a romantic just as he is a believer in revolution, clearly not only loves these boosters with hearts of gold, but anyone that is trying to make it all work for themselves and those around them. When all the cards are down in “I Love Boosters,” it’s hard not to fall in love with them, too.
“I Love Boosters” opens exclusively in theaters on May 22.
